Researching local history

The Thoresby Society are holding a study day at Claremont on researching local history on Saturday 7 May.

There are three research sessions:

More resources of the Thoresby Society Library with Prof Peter Meredith (The Society's Librarian)

Researching local politics with Michael Meadowcroft (former MP and Councillor)

Using journals, diaries and letters in your research with Dr Helen Dampier and Dr Simon Morgan (Leeds Metropolitan University)

There will also be a guided lunchtime walk around the Clarendon Road area led by Jim Morgan (The Thoresby Society)

Date: Sat 7 May 2011
Time: 9.30-4.30
Location: Claremont, 23 Clarendon Road, Leeds, LS2 9NZ
Cost: £7/£5 unwaged

Full details and booking form

 

CONGRATULATIONS

We are pleased to announce that Mrs Freda Matthews, a long standing member of the YAS and several other organisations in the Leeds area is to be given an award from Leeds City Council. The Leeds Award Scheme was introduced in 2007 in order to recognise the outstanding achievements of the citizens of Leeds.

Freda has been a member of the YAS Council and is currently a serving member of the Management Board, as well as working on the House Committee, and is well known to members of the YAS as a hard-working and dedicated member of the Society, but this award is for her work in the local community. She was a founder member of the Little Woodhouse Community Association and the Rosebank Millennium Green was one of her projects. She has also been involved with Swarthmore Education Centre and the Little Woodhouse Picnic on the Green. Many groups around the city have benefitted from her expertise and we are more than happy to add our congratulations to those of the City of Leeds. It is so pleasing to see someone honoured for their hard work and involvement, and Freda is a worthy recipient of this award.

Photo Freda, front right, with Hilary Benn and Maureen and Kirsty from the YAS at Picnic in the Park, 2010

 

2011 subscriptions

Subscriptions for 2011 membership are now due.
Members can find a list of subscription prices here http://yas.org.uk/content/membershipy.html
If you have any queries please contact the membership secretary John Whitaker on yas.membership@googlemail.com or telephone Claremont and leave a message with the library and archive staff on 0113 245 7910.

From 2011 institutional membership subscriptions will be administered by Maney Publishing
All current YAS institutional members should have been contacted by Maney to explain the situation. All enquiries regarding YAS institutional subscriptions and all payments for institutional membership (not sections) should be directed to Maney.

Institutional members who also subscribe to the YAS special interest sections or publishing sections (Family History Section, Industrial History Section, Medieval Section, Parish Register Publishing Section, Prehistory Research Section, Record Series Publishing Section, Roman Antiquities Section, Wakefield Court Rolls Publishing Section) should continue to send payment for section membership(s) to the YAS. All institutional members who subscribe through Maney will still receive the YAS plus section reduced membership rates.

If you are a new insitutional member please consider subscribing to a section. For more information see http://yas.org.uk/content/membership.html
Please contact the YAS membership secretary for more information.

All individual and affiliated society membership continues to be administered by the Society.
However, from 2011 the Yorkshire Archaological Journal will be published and sent out by Maney Publishing. Copies of YAJ from 2011 onwards will also be available for purchase from Maney.
Copies of the YAJ prior to 2011 are available from the YAS yas.shop@googlemail.com

 

NOW AVAILABLE, IN A NEW EDITION

GUIDE TO THE QUARTER SESSIONS OF THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE 1637-1971 AND OTHER OFFICIAL RECORDS

The court of quarter sessions created the most important single archive in any county, and the
massive quarter sessions records for the West Riding are probably the largest and best preserved of them all. For centuries, and up to as recently as forty years ago, quarter sessions was the major criminal court in the county. Thousands of cases of all kinds were heard there and all the records of them that came into the hands of the court were carefully stored way. And none were deliberately destroyed, as they were in many other counties, although there was some damage through neglect.

So today there are thousands of feet of files dating over three centuries from 1662 to 1971. As a result they are rich in a remarkable variety of research materials for family and local history.

The court of quarter sessions was also the major local government authority up to 1889, and so many other aspects of life were affected by its activities. It provided the police force, the prisons and the mental hospitals. It registered electors and licensed game keepers. For nearly three hundred years, it provided a public register of property transactions, accumulating millions of property< records in the process. Convicts for transportation, seamen captured by pirates, freemasons, paupers in their thousands, printers, and publicans, all found their way into the quarter sessions records.

All these records are available to researchers in the Wakefield office of the West Yorkshire Archive Service and there is a catalogue on-line at www.archives.wyjs.org.uk But finding a path through such a large, rich and varied archive needs a good guide. When the cataloguing of the quarter sessions records was completed, such a guide was published in 1984. Although the print-run was< soon sold out, it has never been reprinted.

Now, with generous help from the Marc Fitch Fund, the Yorkshire Archaeological Society has produced a new and thoroughly revised edition of the guide. And there is a new introduction, which explains how the West Riding quarter sessions records can be of use in research by family and local historians.

To order a copy of this book please send a cheque for £9.50 (made payable to “Yorkshire Archaeological Society”) along with details of your name and address to:

YAS Publication Sales, Claremont, 23 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NZ

Price includes UK postage. For sales outside the UK, contact yas.shop@gmail.com

Claremont windows repair

Claremont is well over 200 years old and it’s feeling its age! It has 17 Georgian and 15 Victorian windows (330 panes in total), all of which were in desperate needed of repair. As a grade II listed building this had to be done sensitively by specialist joiners.

If you have visited Claremont recently you will have seen that work is in progress and noticed the improvement that the renovation and repainting have made to the look and functionality of the windows.

The Claremont windows appeal was launched last year to raise money to finance this huge undertaking. Members have been generous in donating, however, we still need your help!

To donate to the Claremont Windows Appeal click here

 

 

Duke of Leeds Collection featured in new publication “Sisters of Fortune”

Jehanne Wake's "Sisters of Fortune: The First American Heiresses to take Europe by Storm" follows the fortunes of the Caton sisters, Marianne, Louisa, Bess and Emily.

Marianne married the Duke of Wellington's brother the Marquess of Wellesley, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Louisa married the Marquess of Carmarthen heir to the Duke of Leeds.

The YAS archives hold the Duke of Leeds collection which contains deeds, legal papers, correspondence, accounts and personal papers of the Dukes of Leeds. Correspondence between the Caton sisters and other members of the Caton family from this collection were used in Ms Wake's research.

"Sisters of Fortune" is published by Chatto and Windus.
http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/catalog/book.htm?command=Search&db=main.txt&eqisbndata=0701173084

"Sisters of Fortune" has been chosen as one the Guardian's books of the year http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/27/christmas-books-year-roundup

If you are interested in finding out more about the Duke of Leeds collection (DD5) please contact the archives on 0113 245 6362 or yas.archive@googlemail.com

 

 

Journal articles

For details of how to submit articles for consideration for the YAJ, please contact the YAS Secretary by email or post.